tea packaged in transparent plastic?

a tea shop in my neighborhood has loose leaf tea which is packaged in little bags which are paper on the outside with plastic lining on the inside. The bags have a window of transparent plastic so you can see the tea inside the bag.

I was wondering if this might cause the tea to deteriorate more quickly; because the tea is sitting on the shelves in the shop all day and is therefore exposed to some light. I had noticed some of their teas tasted off, maybe this is why??

a tea shop in my neighborhood has loose leaf tea which is packaged in little bags which are paper on the outside with plastic lining on the inside. The bags have a window of transparent plastic so you can see the tea inside the bag.

I was wondering if this might cause the tea to deteriorate more quickly; because the tea is sitting on the shelves in the shop all day and is therefore exposed to some light. I had noticed some of their teas tasted off, maybe this is why??

Certainly very possible. In fact, very likely in combination with they are likely not very good selections to begin with.

An educated vendor would likely better source their teas as well as once they had them they would make certain they were packaged properly.

These two functions go hand in hand! If one aspect is missing, the other is likely as well.

Thanks...I suspected as much. Their black teas usually taste OK, but the green teas are just dull.

It's too bad, because they used to have really good stuff. They're a chain of stores and one of their stores had tea in large metal containers which kept them much fresher. Their lungjing when it had been stored in the metal container versus their lungjing when I had it from one of the see through bags is just no comparison, it was like another tea.

About storing teas: I received recently a few teas from China packed in two 'ziploc' (but not the freezer quality bag) plastic bags. One bag containing the tea, and that bag put into another. The weights are 250g each, 2010 teas so they're fluffy and take ample space. What would be the best way to assure taste-keeping ?

Still, is there any drawback in leaving them in the plastic bags, away from light in a basement for instance ?

Canisters with inner lids that go down as the tea quatity diminishes are great but that aside, having tea in an half-filled canister, having all that air space, does give me the impression that keeping them in a plastic bag is better. Do plastic bags alter the taste in any ways ? Would high-quality, freezer-grade Ziploc (TM) bags be better ?

Sometimes out of necessity, members in a swap might send something in a clear plastic zip lock bag, that is one thing. But to store it in such a bag is never a good idea. They are gas permeable for one thing.

Today I received four Pu-erh cakes in shrink wrapped transparent plastic.They did a good job too, nice and taunt plastic, No floppy corners,Looked like a factory job. I almost felt bad about cutting it off.But when I did The tea aroma filled the room.Pu-erh needs to breath to age well.

And so it goes that I got the bags from Upton. Now the teas are nicely packed and tagged. Of course this applies to the Chinese teas. The Japanese teas are already nicely packed and tagged.

So now the teas, nicely packed and tagged, are sitting on a shelf in the basement. I've heard some people put some teas in a fridge. Are you the right guy to ask about that curious practice and its pros and cons ?

And so it goes that I got the bags from Upton. Now the teas are nicely packed and tagged. Of course this applies to the Chinese teas. The Japanese teas are already nicely packed and tagged.

So now the teas, nicely packed and tagged, are sitting on a shelf in the basement. I've heard some people put some teas in a fridge. Are you the right guy to ask about that curious practice and its pros and cons ?

you just went from TeaStorage 101 to graduate level in a single bound!

I do it but I do not recommend it. There are risks involved, that if dealt with, it is beneficial. If I get a 100 gram bag of Japanese tea, I will splity it in half and cold store the reserve while I use the other half.

But a lot of care must be taken!!! I put the tea in Uptons sample tins, place the reserve in one of these which is double lidded, which are available here in TeaSwap btw,http://www.teachat.com/viewtopic.php?f=33&t=12676then put it into the TeaFridge.

I do not think I'll put them in the fridge. I'm way too wary about condensation. The door of the fridge gets opened quite often during the day, especially on weekends. It is not rare to see a very thin film of wetness covering a shelf and such. I'd certainly would not want the tea to get damp.

On the other hand, and I'm just thinking about this right now, we always get huge (for me they're huge even more so I do not know if they're recyclable) bags of silica gel packed with the nori we regularly buy. Maybe they could be packed along with the tea, then put in the fridge. Maybe that could be a prevention against dampness.